June 14, 2014

Reading time ~2 minutes

This has nothing to do with the movie or the snake. Although I am a fan of both. What I am setting off on is an adventure in programing language and web frameworks. I will be learning about the programing language Python and the web framework Django. I hope to document my journey here as I go. I will share what I have learned, what I found difficult and maybe through the sharing help me understand it a little bit better. They say the best way to learn something is to teach others what you know.

So, what do I know about Python? I know it is very popular at the moment. It is a general-purpose, high-level programing language. It was conceived in the late 1980’s and beyond all its technical aspects the core philosophy of the language was to make Python fun to use. The name Python comes from Monty Python. From the start Python was designed to be highly extensible. Python is intended to be a highly readable language. It is designed to have an uncluttered visual layout, frequently using English keywords where other languages use punctuation.

Python has consistently ranked in the top eight most popular programming languages. Python has been successfully embedded in a number of software products such as 3DS Max, Blender, Lightwave, Nuke, and GIMP to name a few. It has also been used in several video games. Python is a standard component in many operating systems such as Max OS X and many Linux distributions. The Raspberry Pi single-board computer project has adopted Python as its principal user programming language. Python is also used as a scripting language for web applications.

That brings us to Django. Django is a free and open source web application framework, written in Python. Django’s primary goal is to ease the creation of complex, database-driven websites. Django emphasizes reusability and “pluggability” of components, rapid development, and the principle of don’t repeat yourself. Python is used throughout, even for settings, files, and data models. In the fall of 2003 Django was developed at the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper. It was named after the guitarist Django Reinhardt. Django](https://www.djangoproject.com “Django”) was designed to handle two challenges: the intensive deadlines of a newsroom and the stringent requirements of the experienced Web developers who wrote it. It lets you build high-performing, elegant Web applications quickly.

Django was released publicly under a BSD license in July 2005. Since then it has gathered a very robust and devout following. They even have a semiannual conference for Django users called DjangoCon that have been held since 2008.